Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Inside that freezer is some yummy beef.... organic beef - no hormones - no weird stuff. And relatively homegrown (within 75 miles of here) and aged however they did it years ago.

I haven't much been liking beef lately. The men in this house remain quite fond of it, prepared virtually any way. And the healthy young women up in here need a steady dose of nutritional iron, as only beef provides. So, we cook it. Usually outside. I am always worried about what might be actually IN the beef, especially when it's ground up. I have grown kind of squeamish about it - no one else around here seems bothered.

Great news though! At the Farmer's Market the other day, PPP and I noted that there was a guy selling beef out of the back of a pick-up truck.But, worry not! From a FREEZER, powered by a GENERATOR, all in the back of a pick-up truck.

PPP got quite interested in checking out the beef....I guess it was the beef she was interested in, intellectually ...all the organic stuff, since she's such an intellectual and all. Yes indeed....it was fascinating stuff.So...we bought the steaks from Mr. Beef, after some conversation about what might be the best cut, and we settled on the flatiron steak - according to Mr. Beef, "it surpasses everything." BigD always throws any solid piece of beef into Italian dressing to marinate. I can live with that. When it came time to cook, someone had a meltdown about the grill, so I just pulled out the griddle and did it inside ....which allowed me to use my cool pop up vent fan.

It is the Italian dressing that makes it look sort of shiny/slimy.

When we had the PRIVILEGE of re-doing the kitchen after Hurricane Elvis invited a tree into our kitchen, the Young Son did massive amounts of research on the appliances. It was a homeschool project with lots of math and figuring out stuff, and comparison shopping, and many, many appliance catalogs from the different elite manufacturers. The Young Son chose a Dacor 6 burner and a Dacor pop-up ventilation fan, which is awesome and saves a ton of space.

See the smoke from the steaks being sucked right into the fan thing. Yes, the fan has not been cleaned in a while....or ever.

I was determined to get those black griddle marks on my flatiron steak. . . a little ragged on the first attempt. No, don't squeeze lime on your steak. That is the lime for my Diet Coke. Which I will want, soon.

Oh look! BigD is cutting up the meat for the children! How sweet! And the children are ....24, 22, and 17. And since I am so concerned about the organic beef with no hormones or other weird stuff, I also prepared....Box potatoes. They come out looking like very hard potato chips, the sauce is made of powder. You add water and butter and milk. And to make it really authentic, I always sprinkle in some freshly grated parmesan cheese. Because I am so nutritionally conscious. REAL BEEF and faux potatoes.

And if you look closely, you can see the rest of our life....my sunglasses, my Diet Coke to go (green dots on the cup) and ...is that a lint roller? Also, note to Mary's mother ...we ended up with your platter. It's the best looking thing in my kitchen. I hope you come get it soon....before it just melts into the stuff of this house and is lost forever.

But the beef was yummy. And if I remember, I will find out who the people are who sell it ....so we can, um, find them again, and buy some more YUMMY BEEF!